Bohdan Drozdov
Summary
Bohdan has tried to build multiple businesses, all of which failed… Until he finally took the leap of faith and FULLY bet on himself. He and his co-founder found a very specific niche for a very specific customer–and it worked. In just 2 years he has built it up to a $300K / year business with plans to hire and expand further.
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, you just need to solve a painful problem. Let’s see how he did it…
Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey, my name is Bohdan Drozdov, and I am the co-founder of SavvyNomad.
At SavvyNomad, we help American expats and nomads move their legal domicile to Florida so they can maintain access to U.S. systems while avoiding state income taxes. On top of that, we offer Compulsory Personal Accident (CPA) insurance for peace of mind when dealing with complex U.S. tax and residency requirements. Our mission is to make “leaving the system” more manageable — while still staying legally connected in a way that’s smart, compliant, and flexible.
We serve Americans who live abroad full-time, digital nomads, and even those who split their time between countries. We give them the infrastructure to be location-independent without losing access to what matters most — bank accounts, voting rights, compliance, and freedom from predatory state tax policies.
What is your background and how did you come up with your business idea?
My background is in marketing and growth. I spent eight years helping tech startups grow, from tiny bootstrapped ventures to unicorns. During those years, I was constantly trying to launch businesses on the side — but working full-time meant I burned time and missed momentum.
In 2022, I took the leap and launched my first startup — a marketplace for tax regimes and residencies for nomads. I saw the opportunity and had the vision, but I couldn’t make it work. That failure taught me the difference between ideas and execution — and how important it is to pick a real pain point that people urgently need solved.
The idea for SavvyNomad came from my co-founder. He was traveling across Morocco and met a group of California surfers who had been living abroad for years — but still paid California state taxes. They didn’t know how to move their domicile, even though they hadn’t been in the U.S. for a while. That frustration sparked our business.
My co-founder spent months experimenting solo — initially working with South Dakota as a base. I joined him in October 2024, and that’s when things clicked. We rebranded, pivoted to Florida, rewrote the product, and rebuilt the offer. That’s when SavvyNomad was truly born.
Walk us through how you launched your business.
My co-founder spent around nine months building solo before launching the first version. He tested everything manually — figuring out how to serve nomads while complying with each state’s rules. South Dakota was the starting point, but the process was complex and not scalable.
When I joined in late 2024, we rebuilt everything: brand, product, market positioning etc. We saw the opportunity with Florida — it had all the infrastructure we needed, strong legal protections, and no state income tax. That pivot was the breakthrough.
We didn’t raise money. We didn’t have a big team. We just focused on understanding the customer’s pain deeply, solving it in a clean way, and going to market with content and ads. It was scrappy, slow at first — and then fast.
The first few months after I joined were brutal. No growth. But we kept refining the offer and the messaging. Once we nailed the core use case — “move your domicile, keep your U.S. access, stop paying unnecessary taxes” — things started moving fast.
How did you find your first customer and how do you find customers on a regular basis today?
We rely heavily on content marketing & SEO as well as Google Search Ads. These are our two strongest acquisition channels.
From day one, we invested in writing detailed guides, FAQs, and blog posts explaining how domicile works, what nomads need to know, and the legal implications. That started picking up organic traffic early — and continues to compound over time.
In parallel, we ran Google Search Ads. Now, both SEO and Google Ads are core channels.
We’ve tested other platforms, but nothing beats intent-driven acquisition for this kind of service.
It took time — but we never relied on luck or virality.
We created content people were already looking for, then made sure we were the most trustworthy solution when they found us.
What are your current revenue streams and how much do you earn from each?
We currently generate $25,000 in Monthly Recurring Revenue (MRR) and pull in $40,000–$50,000 in monthly net revenue depending on upsells and one-off service requests.
We’re hovering around 30% of our $1M ARR goal, and everything is bootstrapped. No external funding, just reinvesting what we earn.
What are your future goals for your business and how do you plan on scaling?
Our short-term goal is simple: hit $1M ARR.
We’re focused on growing efficiently — not burning capital or hiring prematurely. We want to hire soon, but only when we’re confident we can maintain profitability. It’s a delicate balance.
In terms of growth, we plan to launch complementary products for our audience — things like:
- U.S. tax filing for nomads
- Insurance options
- Entity structuring or compliance bundles
Our long-term goal is to own the expat infrastructure layer — a simple, trustworthy operating system for Americans abroad. No matter where they go, we want to be their “home base” for everything legal, tax, and compliance-related.
What type of life has running your own business allowed you to live?
I live a nomadic lifestyle. I travel while building the company. It’s not always smooth, but it’s 100% worth it.
I have way more freedom than I had working full-time — but also way more responsibility. It’s definitely stressful. The highs are high, the lows are lonely. But when the momentum hits, there’s nothing like it.
The beginning was rough. I had just shut down my previous company, and for the first three months after joining SavvyNomad, we had zero new customers. But we didn’t give up — we adapted, pivoted, pushed through. Once things started working, it felt like validation for all the previous failures.
This life isn’t romantic, but it’s real — and it’s better than the alternative.
What tech stack do you use to run your business and what is each tool used for?
- Framer – Our public-facing website is built in Framer. Super flexible and fast to iterate.
- Bubble – Our internal product and customer portal run on Bubble. It lets us move quickly without a full dev team.
- Ghost - CMS for blog.
- Notion – We use it for task management and internal documentation. Our entire ops brain lives there.
- Stripe – Handles all of our payments and subscriptions.
- Google Workspace – Emails, Docs, Sheets — our general comms and document layer.
- Ahrefs + SurferSEO – Just started using these a month ago to supercharge our SEO strategy. Early days but promising.
- Google Ads – One of our main acquisition channels, especially for high-intent traffic.
- SavvyCal – Used for all call bookings with leads and customers. Simple and efficient.
- Intercom – Our current live chat + support system. Works well for async help and onboarding.
- ZenDesk – We tested it before switching to Intercom. Didn’t fit our needs — clunky and overkill for a small team.
What is one piece of advice that would you give to someone wanting to start a business and why?
If you want to start a business — do it. But give yourself 12 to 18 months of personal runway.
Even if you have a great product, it’s unlikely you’ll pay yourself for the first year. Don’t be over-optimistic. Prepare like it’s going to be tough — and if it turns out easier, great.
Part-time entrepreneurship doesn’t work long-term. I tried. Eventually, you need to bet on yourself. That’s when real things start to happen.
Where can people find you & your company?
Our website is called can be found at: https://savvynomad.io/
Secondly, I share how I build in public on the 3 channels below:
